Varieties of childhood bullying: Values, emotion processes, and social competence

Understanding the nature of bullies and bullying is of considerable theoret ical and practical importance. We offer a commentary on a recent debate on this topic between Sutton, Smith, and Swettenham (1999a, 1999b) and Crick a nd Dodge (1999). In this commentary, we first summarize the main points of the debate, including alternative views of bullies as social inadequates Ve rsus Machiavellian schemers. Then we clarify some unresolved issues concern ing the nature and limits of social competence and the roles of values in b oth social competence and in bullying. Finally, it is argued that variation s in children's emotion processes, such as emotionality and emotion regulat ion, also may underlie some of the individual differences that have been fo und in empathy, social information processing, and in reactive ('hot-headed ') and proactive ('cold-blooded') aggressive and bullying patterns.